For first time in 'TUF' history, fans offer guidance to team selection

While the two-and-half-hour debut episode of “The Ultimate Fighter: Live” garnered mixed reviews from MMA observers, the special episode did prove historical by offering live elimination fights for the first time in 15 editions of the series.

The excitement created by the new format was evident on Twitter, as fans, teammates and coaches alike took to the social-media platform to offer their feedback on the combatants.

“TUF: Live” coaches Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber each admitted they received tons of suggestions on who they should pick up for their respective teams, but each said they approached the selection a little different.

“I definitely heard from a lot of people on Twitter – on who they wanted me to have on my team – and maybe subconsciously it helped,” Faber told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “But I was pretty much relying on what I thought the guys were best at – their skillsets, mental preparation, how they fought.”

Team selection, which took place earlier this week, plays a pivotal role in tonight’s second episode of “TUF: Live,” which airs live on FX at 10 p.m. ET.

Sixteen fighters earned their way into “The Ultimate Fighter” house with one-round victories in the debut episode, and they’ve since been divided into two teams, headed by Cruz and Faber.

Cruz, the current UFC bantamweight champion, said he relied on social media in preparing for those elimination fights, but he believes his experience during that first round of matchups actually gave him the insight necessary for picking his squad.

“For me personally, I was here, and I saw the fights the way I saw them,” Cruz said. “My assistant coaches saw the fights the way they saw them, and they cornered the guys. And we saw things that no one else could have seen or talked about in social media, like how they reacted before they walked out – if they were scared, if they were happy, if they were excited, if they were mean – so we took all the things that we saw when we were talking to the fighters before the fight and we used that to make our decisions.

“While using social media was not part of our strategy to pick the teams, we did look them up before meeting them and seeing them on the show.”

Tonight’s second episode also features the first tournament bout as one member of each team will square off for the right to advance to the quarterfinals of the “TUF: Live” bracket. There’s expected to be a bit of roster-shuffling involved, as UFC president Dana White has already teased that “something bad” happened this past week and promised that tonight’s episode could be “one of the best/emotional” episodes in the series’ history.

How that will all play out remains to be seen, but fans will again be able to offer their feedback and suggestions to the coaches, as well as White. In the meantime, Faber said he’s happy with the way his team is already coming together.

“I definitely did get a chance though to see who has a strong fan base out there,” Faber said. “I got a lot of good feedback on the guys, both the ones on my team and some of Cruz’s guys.”

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